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Notes and quotes: UCLA 58, Nevada 20

– UCLA’s 647 yards of offense against Nevada Saturday was the ninth-highest total in program history. It was the most by the Bruins since last season’s 36-30 win over Nebraska.

– Quarterback Brett Hundley missed on a few deep throws, but was otherwise excellent in his first game as a team captain. He opened scoring with 37-yard run, a zone read that echoed his collegiate debut. He had two rushing touchdowns in a game for the third time in his career (also at Colorado, vs. USC last season). His 274 passing yards also came with a pair of touchdowns.

– The UCLA defense struggled to contain Wolf Pack quarterback Cody Fajardo early on, something head coach Jim Mora attributed in part to “first-game jitters.” The Orange County native had 77 of his 106 rushing yards in the first half, and finished with two touchdowns.

“We have to fix that,” Mora said. “I don’t want to put it on the players, necessarily, jumping out of gaps. We have to do a better job coaching it. We have to look hard as a staff.”

– After finishing as the most penalized FBS team last season, UCLA was hit with 12 flags Saturday for 93 lost yards. That won’t do against better competition, Bruins didn’t suffer against the Wolf Pack given the wide margin of victory. One notable example was Grayson Mazzone’s offensive pass interference negating a Devin Fuller touchdown; UCLA ended up scoring on the drive anyway.

“Our old friend the penalty just jumped up and bit us in the second half,” Mora said. “Obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job getting the message across through camp. And tonight, we just fell back into the trap especially in the second half. We have to look at that again very hard.”

– It was a bit of a quiet game for linebacker Anthony Barr, who left the game briefly after losing his helmet. He had two tackles for loss and four overall. Inside linebackers Eric Kendricks and Jordan Zumwalt both had good days, finishing with 9.5 and six tackles, respectively.

– Ka’imi Fairbairn, who missed a field goal from 48 yards before making one from 48, split kickoff duties with punter Sean Covington. Each kicked off five times for three touchbacks — the former for a 64.2 yard average, the latter for 63.2. The Bruins’ offense ran smoothly enough that Covington was not required to punt.

Redmond started at right guard over Benenoch, who Mora said may see some time as a right tackle.

“One silver lining in the game was the young guys getting the experience of that game,” Mora said. “Our young guys made some impact plays. We want to be able to depend on those guys, so for them to get a chance to play important.”

I witnessed my first UCLA PAC12 football telecast last night. It was unbelievable. One of the worst called games I’ve ever seen: totally unprofessional. Mindless chatter unrelated to the game; penalties unexplained or not ref’d; players and tacklers ignored or not recognized; it’s pretty clear why Direct TV refuses to offer P12 channel.

drakejr

Did you know that Nevada had a cover 2 D? If you watched any single UCLA possession you did, because the color guy announced this one fact he knew about Nevada every chance he got.

The whole thing was terrible. If they were any worse, they’d be PAC12 refs.

The EDGE

I guess I’m lucky then to not have any access to the PAC 12 network. Bummed since I have to scour various sites to get a written recap.

drakejr

If you are a Directv customer call and threaten to cancel. They gave me free Sunday ticket, some regional sports channels and a few hundred off my bill.

Vinicius Carvalhosa

Why didn’t Priest Willir and Foreman played in the thin secondary? Are they injured? And maybe I was wrong, but I saw a #42 in some kickoffs too… Neuheisel?

Jack Wang

Priest Willis has an undisclosed injury. I think Foreman is just farther down the depth chart at this point. #42 is Aaron Porter.

Vinicius Carvalhosa

yeah, but it wasn’t Porter kicking, and I saw somewhere that Neuheisel had some kicks in the game… any idea why?

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